Reznor spent most of his career on Interscope, the same label that released Scream. And, as he revealed in the interview, Interscope commissioned a Timbaland remix of the 2005 Nine Inch Nails single "The Hand That Feeds", a remix that Reznor called "laughably terrible."

It was part of what Reznor saw as a misguided attempt to give Nine Inch Nails some street cred. He mimicked a faceless Interscope exec: "Well, this urban thing is really taking off. You'll get it in the club. You know, what if we had Dre or somebody…"

A couple of things to consider here. First, Timbaland is one of the few producers who can plausibly claim more influence over the last decade-plus of recorded music than Reznor can. Second, Reznor actually has worked with rap beatmakers before-- including Dr. Dre. Dre helped mix "Even Deeper", a deep cut from The Fragile, and Reznor remixed Puff Daddy's 1998 single "Victory". Is Timbaland really that much worse than those guys?

Still, this interview is pretty hilarious. The full text of Reznor's comments are below. (via TwentyFourBit)

In the case of Cornell, I don’t know Chris. I do know what label he’s on now, and I do know who’s whispering in his ear. And heavily on the With Teeth album, I turned that record in and I would get back, "Hey you know, you might wanna… maybe we need to put some beats on this record."

I’m not making this up. "What do you mean, beats?"

"Well, this urban thing is really taking off. You’ll get it in the club. You know, what if we had Dre or somebody…"

And the part of me that wants to be the open-minded artist says, "I’ll consider that." I even went so far as Timbaland doing a-- trying to do a-- remix at Interscope’s dime of "Hand That Feeds", which was laughably terrible. And when I turned in Year Zero, which I thought had the coolest beats I’ve ever come up with, I hear "Yeah, we need some cool beats." It’s like, "You know what? Suck me."

And I’m sure there was someone whispering in Cornell’s [ear] and he can put that off as some kind of socio-cultural experiment, but what it was was a money grab. And when you do that, you’re saying to other people that look up to you [that] it’s okay to do that. And it’s not okay to do that. It isn’t.